My Kind of Town
>> Queen's Medical Center Traffic report
Laird Ah Sun, having taken a cab from the airport, was disappointed that visiting hours didn't start until noon. Unable to speak with his brother Lance, Laird called another cab. But which family member to face first?
On the way in he'd asked the cabbie to cruise past the Honolulu Soap Company on Democrat Street, found his dad's white Cadillac already parked in the space reserved for him. But Laird wasn't ready yet to tell the man who'd just paid for two years at Stanford Business -- with the expectation his son would take over the family business -- he now wanted to spend a year in Afghanistan bringing the gospel and capitalism to the mujahadeen.
Laird still wasn't ready for that conversation.
So he'd visit his big sister Lily first. As his cab headed mauka on Punchbowl toward the H-1, Laird noticed a 1971 Barracuda pulling into the ER lot. Classic, but the color could best be described as stomach-flu green. Ugh.
HPD Detective Sherlock Gomes was parking the Barracuda, on his way to visit Serena Kawainui, the woman who'd crashed Sen. Donovan Matsuda-Yee-Dela Cruz-Bishop-Kamaka's car off the Keeaumoku Overpass, when his pager went off. He returned the page from his protege immediately.
Kona Weathers, a junior in the criminal justice program at Chaminade, first met Gomes when Kona was still at Kaiser High and joined HPD's Explorer program. The kid asked good questions, showed a knack for the detective's craft, and since he couldn't get rid of the pesky kid anyway the great Gomes eventually took Kona under his wing. If he could make a difference in his life, well, it was just another way of continuing the legacy of Vern Matsuda, Gomes' old wrestling coach and math teacher at Leilelua High, who'd made all the difference in young Sherlock's life.
"So what, Kona?"
Gomes listened as Kona said he'd done as instructed, spent the last two days at the illegal chemical dumpsite in Waimanalo, noting traffic and taking down license numbers.
"Mostly normal, neighborhood traffic, a few rubber-neckers. But maybe you should visit the driver of one white Cadillac. Came by twice. I went ahead and ran a license check. Guy lives in Kailua, works in Kalihi. Not exactly on the way to work, eh?"
"Not exactly. But don't jump to conclusions. Maybe just another rubber-necker with nothing better to do."
"I got a feeling. He seemed more interested than anybody else. Also, he runs the Honolulu Soap Company."
"So he might have had some use for the dump site over the years?"
It was a possibility, at least.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin
with weekly summaries on Sunday.
He can be e-mailed at dchapman@midweek.com